AXON
Booking & Media Inquiries:
Alan Chamberlain
530-898-0815
Bio:
The first thing you notice is the voice. The resonant baritone, vibrant with the timbre of seasoned oak, prompts the urgent question: “Who is that?”. He sounds familiar, but you can’t quite place it, as he croons like Sinatra one moment, yodels like Haggard in another, wails like Isbell on the bridge, and sticks the landing in Prine territory. And that’s just in the first chorus.
The fingerpicking on the classical guitar arrests your attention next. His signature style, blending tasty arpeggiated figures up and down the neck with ringing open strings, decorates the vocal. While the changes fit comfortably within the familiar singer-songwriter folk genre, you detect stealth inflections of honkytonk, bluegrass and gospel. Jazz and blues figures light up the roots repertoire, blending licks collected from a half century of performing.
Finally, the stylish, literary lyrics captivate your imagination as he regales the audience with good time crowd pleasers Just One More and You Never Know, while his wry stage commentary introduces rowdy, uptempo satires Game Of Life, I Don’t Wanna Feel Better and We Gotta Do This Again. Plot-driven narratives Between The River And The Rails, First Duty, 21st Century Cowgirl, and Responder are blue collar screenplays in three choruses and a bridge, inhabiting the inner lives of intriguing characters. Unflinching portrayals of the darker corners of modern life in Free America, Seeking Comfort, and Turtle yield to redemptive ballads Dharma Waltz, The Way That It Goes, Saved The Best For Last, and the bluesy I’ve Had Enough.
Before you’ve even had the chance to fully appreciate the cinematic imagery and emotional payload of this musical Hero's Journey, the set is over and you find yourself with a newly opened heart, and wanting more.
TL;DR:
The complete package
Axon writes and sings songs in the Western herban cowboy tradition. A rich baritone voice and a signature guitar style combine to open hearts and minds. A half a century of performing across a variety of genres infuses his roots repertoire with elements of folk, blues, jazz, tonk and gospel, informed by a healthy reverence for the music that was the soundtrack of "the Sixties".
It's the Hero's Journey in twenty tunes and an encore, inviting listeners to visit mythic locales, meet fascinating characters, confront demons fearlessly with song and humor, and returning home with an earworm that just won't go away.
Compelling rich baritone vocals span a diversity of stylings including folk, blues, gospel, western and jazz.
Signature guitar style celebrates a roots repertoire showcasing an arpeggiated fingerpicking technique
Superb songwriting, song selection and set sequencing invites the listener on a cine-musical "Hero's Journey"
Congenial stage presence employs wry comedic patter to invite audience engagement